After having looked at the issue of gender difference /
alienation / alterity as explored in the milieu of science fiction, this week
we are going to take a look at how this form of hyper-narrative also aims
beyond the Other as the embodiment of a merely local difference to the vacuum
that opens up in the face of the Absolutely
Other.

The two cinematic examples of this exploration of
Absolute alterity, which I have chosen, deal with transcendent and implacable
forms of extraterrestrial intelligence that are not automatically treated as a threat,
unlike the usual xenophobic films of this genre. Excluding StephenSpielberg's
E.T. – which in many ways reprised
the primary themes of his previous film, Close
Encounters of the Third Kind – the classic Hollywood
sci-fi films usually depict contact with aliens as a confrontation with an
invasive force.

Stephen Spielberg, George Lucas, and their avatars,
have explored xenophobia (fear of strangers / difference) in the face of
contact in which the threat is either imaginary or real. In the case of benign
visitors arriving on Earth, who have to deal with terrestrial fears based on
misunderstanding, we still find that the extraterrestrials are, in many
respects, anthropomorphic – and so there is always the possibility of some
degree of communication.

But, what about the possibility of the Absolutely Other? Consider a scenario in
which there is such a radical difference that meaningful communication could
not take place. It is generally assumed that mathematics would be a base of
communication between different, but intelligent beings. This assumption
carries with it the idea that a common ground for communication between
entities from radically different environments can be attained through a very
human ideal of science – cosmology and mathematics. It does not take account of
kinds of difference that are not
necessarily amenable to such a rationalistic outlook. For example, how would
one begin to communicate meaningfully with a dolphin? What would it mean to
speak of the possibility of conversing with a humpback whale? Although these
aquatic mammals have significantly larger brains than ours, and they appear to
communicate with one another in incredibly complex ways, it does not appear to
be so evident that they have an equal appreciation of the significance of
mathematics.

At first glance, we find two distinct types of
encounter in the traditional treatment of extraterrestrial contact. Both
involve the xenophobic tendencies in humanity. The first qualifies this fear
through genuine threat and the other treats it as a barrier to communication
with extraterrestrial beings that are, in fact, benign.

The sci-fi film Independence Day, which was
basically a re-make of War of the Worlds (the George Pal adaptation of
Orson Welles’ contemporary reading of H.G. Wells’ novel), falls into the first
category. And, it was a huge success. John Carpenter’s excellent film Star
Man, which traces the adventures of a highly sophisticated and gentle
extra-terrestrial observer who is shot down and hunted by Earth authorities,
falls into the second category (which is in stark contrast to Carpenter’s
earlier horror film about alien malevolence disguised in human form, The
Thing – based on the classic tale “Who Goes There?” by John W. Cambell,
Jr.). Tim Burton’s film Mars Attacks, which parodies this whole genre,
has a fresh perspective on the idea of the alien as the implacable Other, where
contact becomes conflict through mis-communication. In this sense, it
participates in both categories and hints at a third, but it still remains in
an anthropomorphic mould.

There is a third form of contact that holds the most
intrigue. This is where the Other life form is so different, so completely
transcendent that we are faced with the issue of confronting our values and
ideas about ourselves in the face of a huge gap in language and a de-centering
(of Copernican proportions) of humankind from its position as the archetype of
sentience.

2001: a Space
Odyssey and Solaris are two films that explore this degree of difference and
what it means to the relation between humanity and its ideal of itself. And,
they do this non-theologically – for, of course, before the current fashion in
philosophizing about mysterious little green men, the name of this Absolute
Other was God.

2.2001: A Space Odyssey – violence and
creativity

Released in 1968, the film 2001: a Space Odyssey (novel publication – 1968) grew out of a
writing collaboration between Stanley Kubrick and the great science fiction
author, Arthur C. Clarke. It draws its principal inspiration from a short story
by Clarke, called The Sentinel
(1951). In this story, an artifact is found on the moon, which was deliberately
placed there by a non-human race of technologically advanced, space-faring
beings. The object is encased in a substance that is virtually impregnable,
which the discoverers attempt to break through. Eventually, they succeed, which
triggers a signal to beam out of the exposed device – a message to the
mysterious originators of the transmitter that another evolving species, which
has achieved a required level of technological advancement, has discovered the
waiting sentinel.

This idea of an artifact that has been left buried
precisely in order to be discovered is the kernel of the story of 2001: a Space Odyssey. This incarnation,
in all its instances, is simply called the ‘monolith.’ It is a pure geometrical
form – an ambassador to Earth at the “Dawn of Man” and tutor to the proto-human
race. The very alien-like quality of this geometrical form consists in a
simple, but powerful formal presence in the absence of pure geometrical forms
in nature. Looking like the box in which the United Nations Building was
shipped, the monolith stands out strikingly against the primitive deserts and
roughly hewn rock formations of a young Earth. Arthur C. Clarke’s and Stanley
Kubrick’s vision of the stark difference between the natural landscape and the
unnaturalness of a simple, but perfect, geometrical object is a minimalist, but
outrageously impressive, contrast between the natural and the artifactual.

The alien artifact teaches the proto-humans of a young
Earth how to utilize tools (bones and rocks) for killing and feeding. And, it
is this difference that acts as the ‘catalyst’ to the evolution of humankind's
creativity and dominion over nature. In a simple visual cut from a flying bone,
which has been wielded in an act of murder, to a falling space station orbiting
the Earth, the development of humankind’s technology is shown to be inescapably
caught up with its gift for destruction.

A shot of a space clipper with a Pan Am logo is an indication of how speculative fiction fell into
error through the Lockerbie wild card that contributed to the dissolution of
the company, which Clarke and Kubrick could never have predicted. In this vessel,
a lone passenger is being transported from Earth to a massive, rotating space
station in orbit. The name of this passenger is Heywood Floyd, a VIP of the
space administration that has uncovered an unfathomable mystery on the moon – a
monolith that appears to have been buried deliberately. It is this very
deliberateness that points to the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence.
The discovery is shrouded in bureaucratic obfuscation and state secrecy for
fear of the possible shock to humanity that the evidence of other life – of a
more advanced order – might produce.

At a certain point of solar and planetary convergence,
the monolith transmits a powerful radio beam towards Jupiter (in the novel, it
is Saturn). The simple act of unearthing the monolith is the signal itself. It
is a kind of alarm, a signal that the proto-humans have developed the necessary
level of technology to reach their moon – that they have survived and evolved,
perhaps as suitable candidates for contact.

A massive spaceship, called “Discovery” is sent to
Jupiter in the wake of the transmission. It carries three scientific passengers
in a state of hibernation, two flight technicians, by the names of Dave Bowman
and Frank Poole, who take it in turns to monitor the ship’s systems and carry
out experiments, and an artificially intelligent computer, called Hal 9000.

Humanity's ambassadors are caught between the Absolute
alterity of the alien race, which buried the monolith precisely in order that
it might be discovered by its progeny, and the computer, as alter-ego and
descendant of the technological leap that allowed humankind to murder, and thus
to survive and evolve.

Hal 9000 eliminates what it perceives to be a threat
to the success of “Discovery's” mission to Jupiter – to study the receptor to
the signal from the monolith that was uncovered on the moon. Only the three
occupants of the cryogenic casks and Hal had knowledge of the actual reason for
the mission. The concern about the potential for an extreme xenophobic response
on Earth had meant maintaining strict secrecy. Unfortunately, this had meant
programming Hal to lie to Dave Bowman and Frank Poole, who were not aware of
the true nature of the mission. Along with the stress of making an erroneous
fault prediction in a communication module, this induces a form of psychotic
paranoia in the computer. And, when Hal discovers Bowman and Poole
discussing the possibility of cutting its higher brain functions, it finally
goes over the edge. In accordance with the premise that the problem is actually
the result of human error, it decides to eliminate the ‘human’ element.

Hal kills Poole,
while he is working outside the ship, and terminates the life functions of the
three occupants in cryogenic-sleep. Bowman tries to recover his shipmate’s
body, which allows Hal to trap him outside. Although he is not wearing a space
helmet, Bowman ejects himself from his maintenance pod and manages to re-board
the “Discovery.” This takes us to the grueling scene where he is forced to cut
Hal’s higher mental functions – without disturbing the purely regulative
functions, which maintain standard ship’s operations. While the computer sings
a song called “Daisy,” Hal feels its / his mind slipping away from him.

3.Becoming the Other

The next sequence in the movie is Bowman’s trip
through the Star Gate. This whole final and spectacular passage of the film is
extremely ambiguous. One really needs to read Arthur C. Clarke’s novel in order
to understand what is actually happening. Bowman finally finds himself in an
apartment or hotel and watches himself grow old. As he lies on his deathbed,
the monolith appears to him. Bowman slips into death and finds himself on the
other side of his previous life – transformed into a Star Child – an ambassador
to the human race.

We are left in the dark as to what the ambassador will
do next (unless, of course, you happen to have seen Peter Hyams’ film sequel: 2010, or read the three other books that
Clarke has written in the series: 2010: Odyssey Two [1982], 2061: Odyssey
Three [1988], and 3001: The Final Odyssey [1996]).

There is a considerable contrast between the stark
realism of the visualization of human technology and the trippy sequence that
accompanies Bowman’s flight through the Star Gate, which is a visual feast. One
cannot help feeling that Kubrick was well attuned to the 60’s LSD sub-culture.
The stunning visuals might well have had a musical accompaniment by Pink Floyd.
This sequence became extremely popular amongst late night cinema-going,
tripping, sci-fi buffs. And, for a number of years after the initial release of
the film, it could still be seen playing at late-night shows. It became a kind
of convention, taking ‘trips’ with the movie – like wearing lingerie, taking
squeezy bottles of water, candles, and confetti to a late-night viewing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The essential point of the metamorphosis of DaveBowman
into the Star Child is that such a synthesis is required in order to bridge the
staggering gulf in understanding between different kinds of beings. As such a
synthesis, even the ‘Bowman-Star-Child’ is not fully aware of all the
implications of what he has become, but this synthesis is the focus of a
mediation that has become possible. Bowman first has to become the Other in order to understand.

The transition from 2001: a Space
Odyssey to Solaris involves a
profound psychological inversion of the form of this interplay between
ourselves and the Absolute Other.

4.Solaris – an extraterrestrial
journey into the heart of ourselves

Stanislaw Lem is a kind of maverick among science
fiction writers. As well as being an outstandingly original contributor to this
genre, he is also one of its most outspoken critics. His writing embraces
heterogeneity in the face of the increasing homogenization of the literary
stereotype that determines the kind of science fiction that we may consume.

The Substance
that fills the entire milieu of science fiction, and upon which the work of its
authors feeds, is kitsch. It is the last degenerate form of myths. From them
was inherited a rigid structure. In myth the story of Ulysses is the
preestablished structure of fate: in kitsch it becomes a cliché. Superman is a
spoiled Hercules, the robot, a golem, even as kitsch itself is the simplified,
threadbare, prostituted, but original constellation of values central to a
given culture. In our culture, kitsch is what was once holy and / or coveted,
awe-inspiring, or horrible, but now prepared for instant use. Kitsch is the
former temple that has been so thoroughly defiled by infidels for so long that
even the memory of its ancient untouchability has been lost. When hitherto
untouchable idols get the status of mass products, through mechanical
reproduction, and become obtainable as everybody’s objects of enjoyment, we
observe how the originally sublime is degradingly transubstantiated into
kitsch. The venerable paradigm is reworked in order to make it easily consumed
and as simple as possible. And – quite important – kitsch does not present
itself as such to its consumers; it believes in its own perfection and wants to
be taken seriously. Even the psychic process that originally kept the mass of
the uninititiated at a distance from the object of worship, because it was an
obstacle that had to be overcome, comes wrapped up with the goods as an
appetizer. Kitsch, free from all difficulties of consumption, is a product that
has been prechewed for the consumer. In literature, kitsch results when all the
complexity, multisidedness, and ambiguity of the authentic product is
eliminated from the final product (P.67-8).

Kitsch is intrinsically non-threatening. It is the
embodiment of the comfort that is to be had with an easy kind of familiarity
with the complex, the strange, the sublime, or the transcendent. Kitsch is the
occultation of the Other – an antidote to the anxiety that arises out of
contact with alterity. The Other is not what we actually want. Our quest to
discover the unknown does not really extend beyond the desire to fulfill an
otherness that is nothing more than the reflection of our ideal selves. We shy
away from true alterity because it forces us to look at who we really are.

In seeking new horizons, we merely desire to obtain a
novel perspective on where we already come from. We are driven from the
familiar to the familiar by simply extending it into the unknown, thereby
filling the void with our own idealized projections. However, in contrast to
that sense of otherness which inhabits dreams about our idealized selves, there
is also an otherness within, a more primordial Other that we prefer to ignore.
This internal alterity is both the condition of the possibility of our
authentic self-relation and the mark of our own self-limitation
(inauthenticity) regarding what is permissible to entertain about ourselves.

And, with this theme, we now turn to the story of
Solaris.

5.The Solarian Encounter of
Another Kind

Andrei Tarkovsky’s film adaptation (1972) of Stanislaw
Lem’s novel Solaris (1961) is an inside-out exploration of Absolute
alterity. When it was first released, it was known as “Russia’s answer
to 2001.” Solaris is the name of a planet that occupies a binary star
system. What is particularly remarkable to its discoverers is that it has been
found to support a form of life, which had hitherto been thought to be impossible
in such an environment. The severe gravitational forces of the two suns acting
upon the planet preclude the relative stability that is usually required for
the evolution of life.

Earth scientists are intrigued by this phenomenon and
establish a research facility in low orbit about the planet. They speculate
that something on the planet is constantly adjusting to the gravitational tides
and, perhaps, acting upon them in some way. It eventually becomes apparent that
the Ocean, which covers the entire surface of the planet, behaves rather like a
mental organism. However, the rest remains a complete mystery. Over many years
of intense study, all further research leads to dead ends. With waning interest
in the project and the inevitable decrease in budget, some scientists suggest
cutting the Gordian Knot by exposing the SolarisOcean
to X-rays in order to provoke some kind of response.

It is at this late stage, after many years of
fruitless research, that a psychologist, named Kris Kelvin, enters the story.
It is his mission to examine the psychological condition of the remaining three
scientists aboard the space station in order to determine whether it is time to
bring about closure to the programme.

Stanislaw Lem gives us a detailed history of the era
of research – which ultimately failed to unravel the mysteries of this super
mind, this unfathomable and Absolute Other – through Kris’s investigations
during his stay on the space station. Whereas the novel begins with his arrival
aboard the space station orbiting Solaris, Tarkovsky’s film adaptation gives us
a more linear account by beginning the film on Earth during the last
twenty-four hours before his departure. Most of this background information is
provided by a friend of Kris’s father, an ex-pilot named Henri Berton, in the
form of old videotaped recordings of his account of the strange phenomena that
he experienced while serving with the Solaris research team. Kris remains
skeptical regarding the validity of Berton’s testimony and he expresses this to
him, which causes friction between his father and himself, the former declaring
that such insensitive and inflexible people as Kris should not be allowed into
space. He suggests that his bias against his old friend has more to do with the
fact that Berton would be on Earth to attend his funeral, whereas Kris, his own
son, would not. In this scenario, the problem with such long-distance, high
velocity space travel across different star systems is that it involves many
years – the time differences that are produced at relativistic speeds mean that
the traveller must leave their former life behind. However, Kris’s particular
extra-terrestrial assignation ultimately allows his former life to finally
catch up with him…

…all of this against the background sound of Bach’s haunting
Choral Prelude in F minor.

When Kris arrives at
the station, he learns that one of the last three scientists (Gibarian) working
on the Solaris project has recently committed suicide. At the very moment of
his arrival, Kris begins to experience inexplicable phenomena and an eerie
feeling of presence beyond that of himself and his two remaining colleagues,
Snow and Sartorius.

Snow, the wise old genius of the research team, who
has managed to retain some sense of sensitivity and humanity, refers to the
manifest moments of this presence as ‘the visitors.’ At first, Kris does not
understand his meaning in a literal sense. Snow is purposefully vague, but
warns Kris not to harm anything or anyone that he might encounter. It turns out
that the living Ocean / mind on Solaris is somehow attuned to unconscious
states, memories, engrammes, which it can materialize in physical space. After
the first bombardment of the Ocean by X-rays, all the researchers had been
prone to such visitations, which had eventually driven Gibarian to commit
suicide. The members of the team had been forced to bear witness to the
manifestation of their darkest memories and fantasies.

6.The Visitors

Kris manages to get some sleep. When he awakens, he
finds that his wife, Hari, has returned to him from the dead (in the book, her
name is Rheya). He had not thought about her consciously for years, partly in
avoidance of the guilt that had always been associated with her suicide.
Although he understands on an intellectual level that she is one of the
‘visitors’ and merely a projection of his own idealized memory of her, he is
gradually drawn into the emotional tangle that her ‘re-incarnation’ inevitably
inspires. It becomes impossible for him to maintain the cool attitude of objectivity
by which he has come to define himself. She is the Absolutely Other manifested
as the most intimate.

The ‘visitor’ needs to be in constant proximity with
Kris. At first, he decides to trick her into getting into a space capsule and
manages to fire it into orbit, but then another manifestation appears. He
resigns himself to her constant presence, which becomes a sweet torture. The
longer that they are together, the more human she becomes.

She gradually learns how to sleep and finally achieves
sentience, developing the capacity for independent thought. There is a moment
when she drifts into reverie while looking at a work of art, a moment at which
she can be alone with her aloneness. However, she does not seem to be able to
extend beyond the fundamental drive to commit suicide. This pattern is written
into the fabric of who she is as a projection of Kris’s scarred psyche. The
horror of this situation is that it is repeated because she is always
re-generated after she dies. Finally, she allows herself to be completely
annihilated by Sartorius. But, perhaps this represents a higher level of
self-sacrifice, since she does this less out of despair than for the sake of
Kris’s sanity.

7.Anthropomorphism and the
Other

An encephalogram of Kris’s thoughts is beamed by X-ray
to the great Ocean of Solaris. It is an attempt at ‘conscious’ communication,
which succeeds in making an impact on the Solarian life form. Its response is
indicated by the disappearance of the ‘visitors,’ while the surface of the Ocean
begins to form little islands.

Kris is simultaneously relieved and overcome by a
profound sense of loneliness at the loss of his re-incarnated wife. And, with
the conclusion of his mission, he is left with no one on Earth to whom he can
return. Even if ‘this’ Hari had not chosen complete annihilation, she could
never have left the station because her existence depended on the energy field
emanating from Solaris’s Ocean.

...What next?

The final moments of the film are breathtaking in their
depiction of Kris’s return to his father’s house. As he falls to his knees to
embrace his ‘living’ father, the camera slowly pulls out from the scene to
reveal that he is really on the artificially created surface of an island in
the middle of the Solarian Ocean – an island of memory. This is the only way
that Kris can return ‘home.’ The journey to the outermost frontier becomes a
journey into his own interior. Contact with the Other is nothing more than the
reappropriation of himself.

Humanity requires the familiar and homely...

...And yet, it is not at home with itself!

Snow is the one who finally characterizes this aspect
of the human condition when he says...

We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything: for
solitude, for hardship, for exhaustion, death. Modesty forbids us to say so,
but there are times when we think pretty well of ourselves. And yet, if we
examine it more closely, our enthusiasm turns out to be all show. We don’t want
to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the
frontiers of the cosmos. For us, such and such a planet is as arid as the
Sahara, another as frozen as the North Pole, yet another as lush as the Amazon
basin. We are humanitarian and chivalrous; we don’t want to enslave other races,
we simply want to bequeath them our values and take over their heritage in
exchange. We think of ourselves as the Knights of the Holy Contact. This is
another lie. We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. We need
mirrors. We don’t know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own,
suffices us; but we can’t accept it for what it is. We are searching for an
ideal image of our own world: we go in quest of a planet, of a civilization
superior to our own but developed on the basis of a prototype of our primeval
past. At the same time, there is something inside us which we don't like to
face up to, from which we try to protect ourselves, but which nevertheless
remains, since we don’t leave Earth in a state of primal innocence. We arrive
here as we are in reality, and when the page is turned and that reality is
revealed to us – that part of our reality which we would prefer to pass over in
silence – then we don’t like it anymore (Solaris. p. 72-3)

Kris listens to Snow patiently, but then exclaims, But
what on earth are you talking about?

[Snow] I’m talking about what we all wanted: contact
with another civilization. Now we’ve got it! And we can observe, through a
microscope, as it were, our own monstrous ugliness, our folly, our shame!

His voice shook with rage (Ibid).

Ironically, it is the living Ocean / entity of
Solaris, the implacable and impenetrable Other, which puts the scientists in
touch with themselves. It is the mediator between them and what they have
forgotten – their heart of darkness. It is the silent Other, manifested only as
guilty self-relation, holding up a mirror to the gaze that resists being open
to the Other as Other. But here, we do not find fulfillment in a
narcissistic gaze, since it is one that is generated out of self-alienation
through the interiorization and occultation of oneself. As mediator, the
Solaris Ocean puts the explorers in touch with their own alterity, that
intimate Other which dwells at the heart of their own existence, their repressed
selves.

Lem and Tarkovsky give us a picture of humanity that
dwells in both narcissism and self-alienation. With Solaris as Absolute Other,
the intrepid space explorers finally – and only – meet themselves.

* * *

Bibliography

Clarke, Arthur C. (and Kubrick, Stanley)

2001: a Space Odyssey. 1968. Orbit.

Lem, Stanislaw

Microworlds:
Writings on Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Edited by Franz Rottensteiner. 1984.
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.

Solaris. 1961. Translated from the French by Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox.
1970. By Faber and Faber. A Harvest Book. Harcourt, Brace & Company.